I get what you’re saying here, but to me, that sounds less like ‘SBMM is bad’ than it does ‘those specific challenges are designed poorly’. If they weren’t designed with their game’s skill based matchmaking in mind - and taking into account how that would effect players’ K/Ds and whatnot - that’s a problem with the…

I love Destiny, but Bungie does occasionally have kind of weird assumptions about how ‘hardcore’ their basic playerbase is, I think: it shows in how they’ll never, ever, ever, let any activity naturally get ‘easier’ as the players level up, and in the way they approach matchmaking, as well.

See, I’d disagree; I think the conversation around Destiny gets a little warped just because so many of the people talking are ‘elite’ players, more or less - I really, really doubt that the average Destiny player is trying to grind a specific piece of gear* out of the ‘hardcore’ PvP mode, you know? In the same way…

Yeah, I get that (and I get the complaint that it makes matchmaking times longer as well)... but I also don’t see how you don’t get the same result without skill-based matchmaking, when you’re just chasing the lesser-skilled players out of the mode entirely. Then, you’re right back to ‘the only people playing at all’…

Honestly, the best part about the mode’s revamp (not just the skill-based matchmaking stuff) is that they’ve made ‘losing most of your matches’ still fairly rewarding, from a ‘the loot you earn’ standpoint. So long as you can win a round here or there, you can still get decent rewards... which means you don’t feel…

That’s part of what’s interesting about the new changes to Trials, honestly (both this change in particular, and the changes this season in general): Bungie’s taking the ‘hardcore’ mode and making it, in a lot of ways, more accessible than just regular, run-of-the-mill Crucible.

I’m sure I’m being uncharitable, but it’s hard for me to read ‘I’m a high skill player who hates the idea of skill-based matchmaking’ as anything other than ‘the game is only fun for me if I can tell myself I’m making it not fun for someone else’.

Again, that’s why I almost find the reactions of players (and ex-players) so fascinating when it comes to Destiny: there’s so much discussion around the game about how much time you have to sink into it in order for it to ‘be fun’ or ‘keep up’, and that’s just... never been my experience with it? As someone who’s been…

Ah; outside of the instanced thing, none of the rest of those are mechanics I’d explicitly link with MMOs - ‘a cohesive world with developed lore and numerous and varied character builds’ is pretty much ‘most RPGs’ to me, no MMO trappings required. (All that stuff is in your Mass Effect games, as an example.)

Out of curiosity: what are the ‘fun parts’ of MMOs, to you? Because I’d say part of why I like Destiny is that it has a lot of the positive aspects of traditional MMOs, without some of the stuff that absolutely keeps me from playing MMOs ever. (But obviously, that’s all highly subjective.)

I’m holding out on the 30th Anniversary stuff - I don’t really get how they’re charging more for that stuff than for a regular season, and if it’s ‘cosmetics mixed with content’, that’s not a precedent I’m comfortable with setting - but otherwise: yeah.

I’ll just say this: I’m an avid Destiny player (and only a middling FPS player), and I think some of your objections aren’t as true as you think they are, in actual practice. In fact, I think ‘I haven’t done everything in the game to death’ is actually a pretty strong reason to play something new.

I think you’re absolutely right, which is why I find it kind of fascinating how much the community tends to kind of obsess over that sort of thing: the reaction to a new perk or God Roll, in all it’s ‘OMG THIS BUILD TOTLLY BREAKS THE GAEM!’ fervor, vs the actual impact said perk or God Roll is actually going to have…

Think you might have posted this to the wrong thread. (And also, yes, I’ve always more or less assumed Sagira’s ‘death’ was when the swap happened - and I’m also at least kind of assuming that Savathun being in possession of Sagira is going to play a role in how the Hive get the Light in Witch Queen.)

I get where you’re coming from, but I also think that’s kind of emblematic of one of the issues surrounding the Destiny community, and kind of what I’m talking about: so much of the focus around Destiny is ‘high level’, ‘hard core’ content.

That’s fair; maybe my perspective is a little skewed because I don’t do a lot of that ‘hardcore’ content, at least not regularly: I don’t raid; I’ve only ever beaten two of the three dungeons and I don’t play those two regularly; I never do the Nightfall strikes beyond ‘has matchmaking’; I don’t find the legendary…

I’d definitely shunt that notion at least to the ‘maybe I’ll get to this, if I get through all this other, less-demanding content first’ pile... but that’s also coming from someone who’s played Destiny for seven years, run exactly one raid, and never felt like I was missing out. (Or at least, never felt like the game…

Yeah, my perspective on NMS is much more: ‘oh, you remember how to play this game, do you? Well go ahead, go out and pick up the thing you think makes your SPACESHIP WORK. Go ahead! Give it a go. Let’s see. Let’s juuuust see. You think it’s that one? WRONG. That one? WRONG. That one? Look - why don’t you just start a…

I play the same way; I get my ‘episode’ of the seasonal narrative done each week, and then maybe I’ll play a little more, if my friends are playing - or maybe I won’t! And the only time I ever really feel like I’m ‘missing out’ is when content is too hard for my friends or I to engage with, rather than when it’s…

Well said. Regardless of what else it is, part of Destiny’s identity to me is intrinsically tied up in the fact that ‘it’s the game my friends and I play together’. It’s as much ‘the time spent with them’ as it is the actual mechanics of the game, in my head.